Any injury updates, Roy?

Mamadou Sakho trained today as did James McArthur so that's good to see those two back in the fold. Patrick van Aanholt is making incredible progress and there is even a chance he will train tomorrow I don't know that yet but speaking to him he wants to train tomorrow if all goes well.

Apart from that we've still got Christian Benteke recovering and that will be until after the international break, but otherwise things are looking quite good. Oh, Chung-yong lee is still injured as is Sullay Kaikai.

So Mama and James are both available for Sunday?

Looks like it yeah. James we have to be a bit careful with because it's a slight problem with his ankle ligament and when you get that you tend to have to live with them for a period of time before you are totally pain free but it's really a question of seeing how he reacts to today's session and see how he comes through tomorrow.

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Tottenham vs Crystal Palace previews

Patrick less of a chance but not totally impossible because he is a fit person, very fit, very slim, he doesn't need days and days of training to get back to where he was so we just have to see if the doctors pass him fit to train. I've learned from experience that what players think they can do training wise and the medical department think can be two different things.

Benteke is not in the Belgium squad, are you aiming for the Everton game for him to come back?

Yeah. I spoke to Roberto [Martinez] the other night, we were at the [Spurs] game together on Wednesday. He's aware of the fact this is a medial ligament damage and it's a six to eight week injury, it's now about six or seven weeks since he actually did it and we are actually hoping that he will be able to train almost fully with us during the international break. But of course it will again be monitored and going to an international team where you'd be expected to play for 90 minutes he's not ready for that at this moment in time.

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That late goal against West Ham could be a big boost for morale couldn't it?

Yes it was, it was a boost to come back from 2-0 down too because in the Premier League when you find yourself two goals down even if you are one of the top teams you are facing an uphill task to get back to 2-2 and when it then happens in the last minute after a strong second half performance, where we created lots of opportunities and looks like scoring on many occasions only to be thwarted by a good goalkeeping performance, it's great to get the last minute equaliser because it reaffirms your faith in there being some sort of justice out there; that if you do play well and if you do really deserve to score and really deserve to get a result, sometimes you actually get it.

You want to see that fighting spirit don't you as a manager?

Well there was no shortage of that I don't think that's really been evident, I’ve not seen any signs of a lack of fighting spirit since I have been appointed. And i don't think from what I see in training that there's any lack of desire on the part of the players to give their absolute all to help the club get out of the situation it finds itself in. But unfortunately fighting spirit alone is not enough, you have to play good football along the way, you've got to defend well and you've got to attack well. They are the things the players are trying to do in training and the last three games have been an improvement from the first three games I had here and we’re hoping to keep that standard going.

Confidence is back amongst the Palace squad

I know you don't like singling players out but Wilf....

I don't mind singling him out at all. The players that get singled out, they are the ones at the business end of the field; the goalkeepers at one end and the centre-forwards at the other. Your goalscorers, they're always going to be the ones that everyone talks about and I'm more than happy to do that.

Since Wilf has been back playing for us he has added something to our team, he's given us another dimension, we threaten teams a lot more than perhaps we were doing in the first three league games I had here and we thank him for that and we hope to keep that going.

Will there be any hangover from Tottenham's midweek game?

It's a question for Mauricio [Pochettino] really, not for me. I think they have a big enough squad, young enough squad, they are very professional and well coached and well managed. So therefore I’ll be very lucky if they play poorly on Sunday, or playing nowhere near the standard we expect of them, I’ll be very surprised. But I'm happy for them to surprise me in that way if they want to, but I think it’s going to be a game against the Spurs team I’ve been watching and admiring since the start of the season because they do things in the right way.

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Are they getting too many plaudits?

I think in football at the level we are working at, there's more than enough people out there ready to criticise and jump on players and managers and owners for even the slightest misdemeanour. If it's true and people are suggesting they get too mans plaudits my answer would be 'good luck to them'. Keep taking those plaudits and enjoying them for as long as you can. I certainly think they are very well deserved. I've seen them play excellently this year, not least against Real Madrid where it ended 3-1 but it could quite easily have been 6-1.

Pep Guardiola called them 'the Harry Kane team'...

You can lure me into going along with that. I don't think Pep Guardiola for one minute labels Tottenham a one-man team, I think he was obviously referring to the fact they have an exceptional player at centre-forward who scores with virtually every tough of the ball. I don’t think they are a one man team, I pretty sure Pep Guardiola does either and anybody who loves football and admires good football at the moment will be admiring the way they are playing.

You need luck when you're in the position you're in, is it unlucky you'll face Everton after the break when they will probably have a new manager?

No, if you're going to talk about luck at all it will be the luck you have during the 95 minutes of the game, where your bad luck sees a good shot hit the post and come out or sees their equally good shot hit the post and go in. That's the only sort of luck I'd be prepared to talk about or hope for.

I don't consider anything in regard to how a team will actually be in terms of it's managerial position or having played Champions League football, that doesn't interest me one bit. There's no luck to be had in that, that's just the way the games come out of the hat and you'll never know how that team will be until the moment you play them.

Hodgson thinks Kane is one of the best in Europe (Image: David Ramos/Getty Images)

Has that West Ham performance given the team a lift?

I'd like to think so of course. The mood in training had been pretty good throughout, it's obviously boosted by that late equaliser and the reward you think you deserve for your performance. So in that respect everything has been good this week but of course it’s all about points finally and at the moment we are desperately short of them.

We’re not finding it easy to get those three points, because we think on one or two occasions we haven’t had the best of luck and also we find ourselves facing top teams away from home. But we’re looking forward to the game at Wembley, it’s a great opportunity to show that we are getting better and not as bad as the league table suggests.

Would you agree Wilf is Palace's talisman?

If you have got a player like Wilf and most teams do have them - someone singled out to be the man to help the team win games - then you're going to be fortunate to have a player like that in your ranks. Talisman? I don’t know. I'm not even certain I know the true meaning of the word, I hear it a lot but I’m not sure I can really define that word. If you ask me what's a talisman I might answer 'Wilf Zaha' but I wouldn't know exactly why I'm saying it. He’s a very important player and I think the players also see him as an important player.

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He's the type of player that when we give him the ball in an important area of the field, he excites us all. It doesn't just excite the crowd, it excites the coaching staff, the players, because we know he has the ability to pick up that ball and beat not just one one, even two defenders and to either score or set up a chance. If you are going to win football matches every team has to have a player of that type that they really believe in and trust that if we can get the ball into this fellow in the right are he's going to do something.

Is it fair to say Spurs' result could have take a bit out of them emotionally?

I don't know. I know one thing; knowing Pochettino as I do and admiring his work, he will certainly from Thursday onwards be preparing the team to play us, he'll be telling the players all the right things, making certain there is no complacency, that they don't take the game too easily, they don't underestimate us, that they do keep running as much as they have been running. He'll be telling them all those things. The big questions is will the players be able to take all that on board and do it, I don't know and I would have a pretty good guess Mauricio doesn't either.

Hodgson is hoping to catch Spurs on an off-day

In your opinion is Harry Kane the best striker in the world?

I think it's an impossible thing to do, to compare strikers all around the world. Each one is a different type of player. Harry Kane is not Ronaldo, Ronaldo is not Messi, Messi is not Higuain etc etc.

But in the way he plays?

He plays like a centre-forward. That's what he does for me. Just like Messi plays as a centre-forward, or Higuain or Benteke. He's a very, very good centre-forward, but to start saying he is no.1 in the world, no.2 in the world, no.6 in the world is a meaningless exercise. From my point of view I have no real interest but if I'm reading newspapers or going online perhaps I'd be interested to see where people are putting him in that but don't expect me to do it as a football coach.

With Kane, does it help playing against him that you worked with him?

No. Not one bit. He’s an excellent player, he was in excellent form before the Euros, during the Euros he was obviously disappointed that he couldn't reproduce that form. But he's a really, really good professional, one that we, going into the Euros alongside Dele Alli though might be our trump cards. It didn’t quite work out for us during the Euros with the two of them as trump cards but they were trump cards before and have certainly been trump cards afterwards and I have enormous respect for them both because they are superb footballers.

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We know how dangerous both are. We know how good they are at contriving to get into situations where they can score goals and how they good are when they get in those situations at putting it in the net. Our job has got to be to try and if totally prevent them ever getting into that situation we have to work very hard to limit them because we know they don't need a lot of chances to score goals.

Does it help to have managed at Wembley already several times.

I don't know hot many games our players will have played there but Tottenham players will have had quite a few games there with England even before they moved there, because that Tottenham group of players were working with us at England for a good couple of years. It doesn't help me at all, no not at all. It's exciting to be going back to Wembley, I think it is a fantastic football arena and could argue it's the best in the world. It's a wonderful playing surface, the atmosphere the other night was electric, I don't know whether it will be quite as electric on Sunday but I wouldn't be surprised, they get a big crowd there.

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So it's one of those games you really look forward to, but unfortunately knowing how the dressing room looks and knowing how to get to the dressing room from the coach doesn't help me a great deal. It's what those 11 guys wearing the red and blue stripes shirts are going to be able to do when they cross the white line and the referee blows the whistle, it's as simple as that.

Do you pay attention to statistics between teams...?

No. No I don't. No. I think statistics full stop you have to be very careful with because you have to have great faith the people collecting the material for a start, that they are collecting it in the right way. And they are totting up the number of passes correctly, they are actually measuring the running distances in the correct way etc, so with all statistics you have a little bit of a look at it and think 'can that really be true?' And certainly when it comes to matches between teams, if we go back three, four or five games with Tottenham there's no guarantee that was the same manager [facing them] with each team, the team might have changed enormously.

I think if you really wanted that you’d have to compare the exact same team with the exact same managers playing every time and and that never happens. So I don’t have faith in that or any faith in meetings between managers either. I know you like to do that...'Mourinho's got this record against Guardiola'...I just find that nonsense sorry. It doesn’t interest me one bit.